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Denver Broncos / NFL

Denver Broncos tight end Julius Thomas struggling with his blocking

By Joan NiesenThe Denver Post

Posted:
10/26/2013 12:01:00 AM MDT

Updated:
10/26/2013 07:02:35 PM MDT

Denver Broncos tight end Julius Thomas (80) makes a touchdown reception against Indianapolis Colts strong safety Antoine Bethea (41) during the first half of an NFL football game on Oct. 20 in Indianapolis. (AJ Mast, Associated Press)

It's not that Julius Thomas cannot. It's that he knows not.

On the field, in the moment, the Broncos tight end sees maybe five separate things once a play develops and acts accordingly.

In many games, Thomas will run back to the sideline after a play and be met with a question from Barone. "Did you see that?" the coach will ask, referring to a block Thomas should have made or to a player who escaped his assignment.

"Not at all," Thomas said. "I didn't see it at all. Now I look at it, and I see it from a different perspective, and I'm like 'duh.' "

Thomas has had a breakout season as Denver's starting tight end, with eight touchdown receptions and 422 yards receiving. Two months ago, he was too often mistaken for the explosive offense's other Thomas — Demaryius. Not anymore.

What fans may not know is that Julius Thomas is struggling as a blocker.

Granted, being an NFL tight end in 2013 is vastly different than it was 15 years ago. Barone said he hasn't had a player at the position who put up receiving numbers as Thomas has, and could block exceptionally well, since he coached Atlanta's Alge Crumpler nearly 10 years ago. Tight ends no longer are 275-pound blocking behemoths. They're receivers who happen to block too. Even if blocking is somewhat an afterthought, it's still a requirement.

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When he was put in as a tight end at Portland State during his one season of college football, Thomas was hesitant. He wanted to be a receiver. Receivers are not required to block much, and as a college basketball player, the skills involved in blocking were utterly foreign to him. Still, a tight end he became, and if receiving came naturally, blocking did not.

According to Pro Football Focus' position rankings, Thomas is sixth among tight ends in his grade for receiving. In run blocking, he's ranked 28th. Denver offensive coordinator Adam Gase must take the good with the bad when it comes to his young tight end. Problem is, Gase said, it's the bad — the missed blocks, the flubbed assignments — that people notice.

For now, Thomas isn't where he needs to be as a blocker, but things aren't quite as doom-and-gloom as they might seem. Remember, seven games ago, few fans had heard of Julius Thomas.

"(Blocking is) a work in progress for anybody who didn't grow up playing the sport," Barone said. "Even for a lot of guys who did ... maybe they had to change from playing receiver to tight end, and it's a whole new animal. Playing football down in the trenches is something that you have to learn to do. I don't think anybody's ever born with that."

Thomas looks at it as a picture, one which for him still has blurry edges. Blocking, he said, isn't about just going out and grabbing someone. Defensive players work all week to escape that. No, blocking is about understanding how to do it, how to adjust and how to read the defense to know who to block.

"I need to see the whole picture," Thomas said. "That's what gaining experience is all about. You're taking little bitty bits of information and you're trying to make them all make sense."

Grabbing attention

To show just how well Broncos tight end Julius Thomas has played this year as a receiver, here's a look over the past five seasons at the statistics for Denver's starting tight end through seven games:

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